Scattered Frames: The Monster Lunchbox of Budapest

Hello everyone! Welcome to the newest edition of Scattered Frames. Today we review Wes Anderson’s latest, star-studded affair, a charming Indian dramedy and a kaiju adventure set in “Mexico”. Check it out!

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson rights the wrongs from Moonrise Kingdom in his latest film, a gorgeous thing to look at. With all its pinks and lilacs and pale yellows, it’s like a cute little pastry you don’t want to bite into in fear of ruining it; one of those times where style clearly trumps substance but you don’t mind anyway. The inhabitants of this dream are characteristically offbeat but not alienating, which means you care about what happens to them, unlike Wes’s last film. Not caring for the characters would be such a waste of a fantastic, talented cast, possibly the finest Anderson’s assembled to date. Funny, shocking, moving and oh-so-beautiful, Budapest is possibly the best film of 2014 so far. 4/5

Dabba (aka The Lunchbox): Light, harmless dramedy from India is like your lunch on an average day at work: pleasant, filling but not particularly memorable. The acting is solid by the three main players, but the narrative starts to get repetitive after a while and Ila’s (Nimrat Kaur) conversations with her “auntie” across different floors in an apartment building are so annoying. Still, there’s quite a bit of food porn to gaze at and while it’s not really remarkable, it’s much better than the standard Hollywood romance. 3/5

Monsters:Watched this one in preparation for Godzilla, which opens today and, I have to say, I hope Gareth Edwards steps up his game for his sophomore effort, because his debut is just so overwhelmingly amateurish and quite possibly the dullest monster movie ever. If you’re going to place emphasis on the characters, at least make ’em interesting. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the stereotypical portrayal of “Mexico”. Edwards fails spectacularly at capturing the feel, the look, the accents, the idiosyncrasy of the country, while being completely off geographically and even offensive in that pretty much every Mexican character is either corrupt, a swindler or a thief. Ugh. I thought this was the 21st century. Nice cinematography, though. 1/5

Good stuff man, what about the conversations with her auntie were annoying?? hahaha I think that’s a funny reaction. I thought it was kind of a charming communication tool, although I will concede the repetitiveness. There was a good bit of that throughout. All in all, it was refreshing and you summed it up well as it is a far better romance story than most of what Hollywood has to offer.

I think I’ll skip Monsters. . .or maybe watch it much much later. And very good to see you loved Budapest. I actually think i dug Moonrise Kingdom more but the characters were far quirkier and harder to hug in MK, for sure. Some didn’t like it as much but i thought it to be spectacular